Butterfly. Copy-right P. Audcent
My name is Jonny but my elder sister Jean calls me Jonny two shoes. I don't really know why, but perhaps is because I'm always tripping over my feet. It happens often when I run or skip, I really love skipping but Jean says its a girls game but I say boxers do it all the time. But the oldest of us all except for Mum and Dad is Robby he is really old and is nearly ten. Robby has his own friends but he sometimes spends time in the garden with Jean and I playing cricket and soccer but I'm always the one in goal or wicket keeper running to fetch the ball back and sometimes tripping over my shoes. They were Robby's years ago so Mum saved them for me when I grew into them but they are too large. Robby tells me to wear two pairs of socks to make the feet fit better.
One day he showed me how to catch insects in the garden and place them into a jam jar with leaves to eat. So last week I was in the garden and looked at the tall apple tree we had and on a branch at the same hight of my nose I saw a wonderful butterfly with its long spiral tongue sipping at the nectar in the flowers. Robby said they had a tube tongue like a drink straw which they used to suck up the sweet liquid. I placed my finger close to one of the flowers and the butterfly eventually hopped onto it. I remember standing quite still as it flapped its beautiful wings in the sunlight then folded them and wound up its tongue in a spiral then went to sleep. I gently crept into the house and along the passageway to my bedroom and there I released it onto the tall cupboard and closed the door. I rushed out to find Robby or Jean to tell them of my wonderful new pet but could only see Mum in the laundry.
She told me that butterflies needed to drink often and that a saucer of sugar water would do the trick. So I carefully prepared the saucer and took it into my bedroom and placed it close to the sleeping butterfly. They I lay back onto my bed and watched, I was impatient for it to wake up, which it did after a few minutes, and it flapped its wings and circled the room until landing on the saucer it started to unwind its tongue which was black. It dipped it into the liquid and I could see it was drinking and I thought how wonderful to have your own built in straw.
So my butterfly and I slept that night in peace, but next morning bossy Maddy from next door rushed in and opened the window.'You must not keep a native animal in captivity' and before I could leap out of bed my beautiful butterfly had escaped through the window. My mother, when told, just shook her shoulders and said 'Well you want your butterfly to have children so I expect its all for the better'. But I did notice she rather pushed Maddy out of the front door so she wouldn't see me burst into tears. Still I dreamt that night about all the children that my butterfly would have and maybe another child like me would reach up and have one of them on their finger. So I was at peace with myself and slept well.